


Power

by literarygoddess



Category: Iron Man (Movies), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dealing with issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt, Hydra (Marvel), Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, Tony Stark Has Issues, Trauma, set after the first avenegers, tony and my oc are friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29577339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literarygoddess/pseuds/literarygoddess
Summary: "I know just as much as the next guy that you don’t want to keep reliving this but--’“I get it Tony,” she stops him, “but you're dodging my question.”“And now you’re dodging mine.”“Touche.” She shoves a forkful of broccoli into her mouth and chews slowly. “I asked first.”He blinks at her and turns back to the TV for a moment. She thinks he’s about to drop the topic entirely, but he shakes his head and says, “Oh you know, I’m keeping busy.”~~~~~~~Vironika Barton is dealing with the fallout of being kidnapped by HYDRA right after the Battle of New York and the effects of being exposed to Loki's Scepter.
Relationships: Tony Stark & Original Character(s), Tony Stark & Original Female Character(s)





	Power

**Author's Note:**

> My oc Vironika Barton is close to my heart. She's Hawkeye's younger sister and I've been writing her since I was 14. I have most of a plot for her in the MCU, but this is one of her more important moments that I've finally put in writing. I hope you enjoy :)
> 
> TW for talking about trauma and s*icidal thoughts and very mild s*lf h*rm

There were certain things Vironika Barton didn’t like. She hated the color red for a long time, she didn’t like getting wasted, she didn’t like to discuss her feelings in-depth, and she didn’t like to talk about the weather. She was sure that most of everyone on the team didn’t like talking about their feelings, though. There was a large need for therapy within the Avengers, but that was usually solved by not talking and punching your way out of things instead: hazard of the job. However, when they finally released her from the hospital and handed her over to SHIELD after her run-in with a HYDRA division directly after the Battle of New York, she decided that she just didn’t like talking in general. 

All they asked of her was to talk. Replay it over and over, talk about her MRI scans and a whole host of other medical charts and try and discern more about Strucker and his plans and what happened to her and how the scepter could have affected her. She takes up residence in Avengers Tower and spends a lot of time alone. Tony tries to spend time with her, but at least he doesn’t make her talk and for that she is grateful. He knows enough about SHIELD to know how much they’re grilling her when she’s there. The rest of the Avengers, while worried about her more than SHIELD is, are concerned with taking out the remaining HYDRA subunits that splintered off after New York while also picking up the pieces of their own issues too. She can see Tony spiralling on the side sometimes. 

One day they’re sitting on the couch with Chinese takeout from down the street and watching old Leave it to Beaver reruns when she turns to him and asks how he’s doing--really doing. 

He looks up at her like he originally thinks the question is non-sequitur and then he sighs. “How are _you_ doing Barton?” She looks down into her take out box and stabs at the lo mein with her plastic fork. “Because you were all..” his eyes widen in the way they do when he’s trying to put on the showman’s front but you can tell there’s real disbelief under it, “glowing... when we pulled you out of there--and I know just as much as the next guy that you don’t want to keep reliving this but--’

“I get it Tony,” she stops him, “but you're dodging my question.”

“And now you’re dodging mine.”

“Touche.” She shoves a forkful of broccoli into her mouth and chews slowly. “I asked first.”

He blinks at her and turns back to the TV for a moment. She thinks he’s about to drop the topic entirely, but he shakes his head and says, “Oh you know, I’m keeping busy.” He’s not lying. She doesn't see him much out and about in the tower; she always finds him in his lab. His hands have fresh scabs on them from working. 

“Burying yourself in work to avoid dealing with things isn’t ‘keeping busy,’” she mumbles. 

He snorts and stifles it with a mouthful of rice. “It _is_ ‘keeping busy;’ I’m busy--”

“You’re avoiding,” Ronnie points out. “I’m just.. I guess I’m asking if I can help.”

He regards her carefully, and she shrinks back a little. “Now who’s avoiding. You can’t take on my issues to ignore whatever the hell is happening with you.” They’re both silent for a beat; the canned laughter from the TV sounds mocking. “What is happening with you V?” 

She sets her takeout box down on the coffee table and pulls her knees in close to her, facing slightly away from Tony. An itch develops on the back of her neck, slowly at first until her fingers are twitching from where they’re clasped around her legs. She doesn’t even know where to begin, mostly she just wants to press down all the memories threatening to swallow her like a tidal wave, but she supposes that if anyone has experience with what happened to her it would be the man who was taken hostage in a desert after being blown up by his own missile. “I don’t know,” she finally answers in a low whisper. “I try not to think about it, and I know that I need to so I can get through this, but that’s all they ask me to do all day. They throw medical charts at me that I can’t understand, but it seems that they can’t either and it’s scary as fuck.” Her gaze is trained on the floor, unable to be torn away as the words just come spilling out. “I _know_ I was glowing when you found me, and it _hurt_.” She takes in a large, gasping breath. “I was alone. Really, honest to goodness alone, and you couldn’t find me and in that moment I really wanted to die--I was going to... I know that.” 

Tony is looking at her like he’s looking in a mirror. It’s not quite the same but it’s enough to have his throat getting thick and he’s reaching out for her hand because her knuckles have gone white and he doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t say that it’s okay because it’s not, and he also can’t assure her that it ever will be again because _holy shit_ they aren’t alone in the universe and nothing is going to ever be as simple as a man in a tin can again. 

Vironika wants to keep spilling her emotions onto the floor like a waterfall, but when Tony grabs her hand she latches on and the tears gathering in her eyes finally spill over. She wipes her cheeks with her free hand and takes several shuddering breaths, squeezing his hand firmly. He nods, and tugs her in for a real hug. When both of their eyes are closed they miss the brief but powerful magenta light that engulfs them, and by the time Vironika pulls away it’s gone just like her appetite. He knows that it’s over for now without having to exchange any words, and she pulls her sweatshirt sleeves down over her hands while she walks away thus effectively covering the lingering glow weaving between her fingers. She falls into bed without even taking off her shoes and cries for a long while. 

Tony goes about cleaning up their take out, only realizing that his recent workshop scratches are gone when he flicks on the light to his work table once again to go about making some more because lord knows he won’t be able to sleep after that. He blames it on the fact that all his days are blending together and puts it out of mind. 

Within a week, SHIELD feels that they’ve gained all the information that they can from Ronnie and release her from questioning and put her back to work. However, she’s been ordered to keep out of the field until further notice since they still don’t know exactly how Loki’s scepter affected her. She takes to paperwork like oil to water. At night now she joins Tony in his workshop and he teaches her how to do maintenance on the boots he made her, but she can tell that he’s feeling worse as the days pass.

One day she wakes up to an empty floor and since it’s her day off she chooses to spend it wandering the Tower looking for something to do. One would assume that under the circumstances she would have plenty of things to occupy her time, but she actually gets bored enough to flick through the security tapes to see if she can find any funny clips of Tony or something. While perusing the past month, a certain flash that passes while on fast rewind makes her breath freeze in her lungs. It’s just about everything she doesn’t want to happen, but she clicks through the night frame by fame and it confirms it. Something did happen to her with that scepter and it did something to Tony. She has his number ringing immediately. 

“Hey, V,” he answers on the fifth ring. 

She composes herself, trying not to assume the worst immediately. “Tony, hi. What’s up?”

“You called me…” He’s starting to sound worried. 

“No, I know, it’s just... You weren't here and--”

“What,” he sounds.. out of breath, actually, “am I your babysitter?”

She’s taken aback. “No. I just wanted to check on you.”

His sigh is long over the receiver. “I am one hundred percent fine.”

“Okay, bye.” She doesn’t give him a chance to reply before hitting the end call button.

Her hands are shaking and her phone falls to the desk with a clatter. She should call someone at SHIELD. Instead, she keeps clicking through the kitchen recording frame by frame. She goes through those five minutes after she leaves several times. Tony seems fine--better than fine actually; on the last run though she finally notices his hands are healed. 

It clicks. 

She grabs her phone and runs to the kitchen and throws her phone onto the counter so hard that it slides into the sink. The cutlery drawer jingles as she rips it open and what she was planning to do finally settles in as a not-so-great idea. There are better ways to test if she has healing powers, she’s sure. Her heart is pounding in her ears as she reaches in and pulls out a steak knife anyway, closing the drawer with much more care than she opened it with. There’s a lot of unknown factors popping up in her brain like computer ads. For starters, she’s not even sure if she can just do this by pure power of will. She turns around and slides down the cabinets until she’s sitting on the floor with the knife held aloft in one hand and the other resting limply in her lap. She closes her eyes, and tries to meditate. 

It’s hard to quiet her mind with so much noise swimming around that’s been there for months now. Ever since that night in her apartment it had been a nonstop stream of trying to survive, then trying to make sense of things, then depression thoughts, then nothingness in the hospital, then the double noise of trying to answer everyone’s goddamn questions. She draws in a long breath and begins to focus first on the weight of the knife in her fist. Inch by inch she gains ground over the noise until it settles uncomfortably in the background. Underneath it all, she can feel a sparking, sloshing energy just sitting there. In a way it’s almost like it’s just a piece of an ever largening puzzle that’s way out of her hands. She tamps that thought down for later and focuses on discerning the way it’s wired into her. With every breath, the energy breathes, and when she exhales it pulses, warm and alive. It would be frightening if worse ordeals hadn’t already occurred. However much it feels like it’s not hers, it is a part of her now and she knows intrinsically that it’s there to stay. It came from somewhere cosmic and old and now it’s hers. 

She opens her eyes slowly and drops the knife with a cut off scream. It narrowly misses her sock-foot and skids under the small cabinet lip. Her hands are coated in exactly the energy she felt inside her. It shifts with every pulse of her veins and clench of her muscles; it looks exactly how it felt. However, it’s only there for a moment until she draws in another breath and it recedes, flashing along the veins closest to the surface of her skin until it’s gone. Gone.. but not; she’s too aware of it now for it to be ‘gone.’ 

“Okay,” she says to no one, “this is fine.” It wasn’t, but she didn’t know what else to do. After a moment she pulls the knife back up. It glints in the light slanting through the wall of windows, but she has already dug it into the skin on the top of her forearm before she can psych herself out again. It’s not a deep cut, but it stings for sure. Then she’s standing and dropping the implement into the sink to wash it after whatever happens and digging her phone out before she bleeds on it. The screen (now a little cracked) lights up but she pushes it aside for now. She reaches back inside and does her best to imagine herself siphoning that energy up from inside and into the hand opposite of the arm she cut. It stutters, but she watches as her veins flash under her skin and suddenly her whole hand is glowing a violent magenta. A strangled and surprised laugh busts out of her mouth and it makes the power flicker. 

She looks between the power and her cut; the blood is already clotting, so she steels herself before closing her hand over the wound. In an instant she hears a snap like the kind you hear after discharging static electricity on a metal surface and her wounded arm zings with pain. She shouts and yanks her hand away. She’s bleeding again, and her vision goes fuzzy for a moment so she has to hold herself up on the edge of the counter. The glow recedes slowly and she swears that it’s taunting her. Of course it doesn’t work on herself; like opposing magnetic fields, it repelled any effect the healing may have had. Trying to will the power to heal her from the inside just yields a burning, throbbing, and mildly glowing cut. 

“Beautiful,” she mutters before trudging off to the bathroom for a bandage. She sits on the bathroom counter for a while toying with the glowing substance sparking within her until she can focus it into tendrils wrapping around her fingers. 

“Miss Barton,” JARVIS’s voice over the building intercom startles her and she shocks herself with her new ability. “Mister Stark has been trying to call you for fifteen minutes, shall I patch the call through my system to you here?”

“N-no,” she stands, “I got it.” Some feeling in her gut tells her that he already knows--he was watching the security feed already or something, but when she slides back into the kitchen to check her phone she sees five missed calls and the final text from Tony says “sorry to drop this so soon, but I’m taking an extended stay in Malibu. Hope everything turns out.” 

Once again, Vironika Barton is entirely alone for new reasons that go past an empty house, and with an ever-sinking heart she realizes that from now on she will have to do a lot more talking about it. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always tell me how you liked it! Let me know if you have any lingering thoughts or if I made any grammatical errors. If anyone likes her enough I might get around to putting more of Ronnie into the world.


End file.
